


not if it's you

by kingmoriarty



Category: DC Extended Universe
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Suicidal Thoughts, Toxic Relationship, Unreciprocated Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-14 06:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20596274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingmoriarty/pseuds/kingmoriarty
Summary: It takes seven years for the body to regenerate a completely new set of cells. Seven years, Clark will have to wait.





	not if it's you

“What do you do?” the man asks him, twirling his champagne flute with deft fingers, ice-blue eyes not straying from Clark’s for a second.

_ I’m a car crash. _

“I work for  The _Daily Planet,_” he replies smoothly. He holds their string of eye contact assertively, not backing down from the challenge for an instant. Green against blue-

And then, Bruce Wayne flits by, a compact figure of brutish elegance, and the thread snaps. His gaze hones in onto Bruce of its volition, like a missile auto-locking onto its target. (It should be the other way around, Bruce being the missile - in another universe, perhaps, where Bruce actually bothers to look at Clark.) The glass façade of Bruce’s face is unbelievably formed, it amazes Clark every-time, glimmering with pearl-white smiles and strategically placed winks. He brushes past socialites, fingers touching elbows and waists; he towers over slender men, an alpha gleam in his eye.

When Clark finally turns his attention back to the man he’s speaking to, he doesn’t reply, eyes flicking between Clark and Bruce curiously. And the question now is  _Why are you staring at Bruce Wayne like he's a supernova. _Clark ignores it (half-ignores it, the man only has to look down to glean his answer in the tremble of Clark's fingers.) “I’m a journalist," Clark clarifies, steering the conversation back to safe waters.

_I’m Superman and he’s my goddamn kryptonite, fresh out of the Indian Ocean. _

“I see,” he says. He doesn’t, of course. (Clark can barely see, some nights: the curve of the moon, the glittering skyline of Metropolis, the distance between him and Bruce. Sometimes, it feels like it's been erased, like he could just bound up to Bruce and-)

Clark’s mind takes him back to conversations of strained whispers in darkly lit corridors. _No-one can know._ And  _I’m sorry_ and a punch in the shape of a kiss.  No-one can ever, ever know.

(_It was a fever dream_, he has to tell himself.)

Bruce is cornering a stunning woman at the bar like a glorious lion stalking its prey, slender fingers brushing her neck without the slightest sliver of shame, as if they are the only two people in the room. And the Wayne-charm is on its hundredth notch, Clark can see his half-lidded eyes and the inviting slant of his mouth from where he’s standing.

_Why do you insist on putting a mask on for other people? Why do you pretend, I know what you look like at 3am, tinkering with the Bat-mobile with grease smudged on your forearms and dark circles around your eyes,__ I know _ _your laugh lines when Alfred matches your snark with an even wittier remark, I know the press of your mouth against mine and it was real, I swear it was real not like Bruce Wayne does open-mouthed and deep and absolutely filthy but soft as time for that one split second of a disaster why won’t you look at me why why why_

Clark is a car crash. Bruce is just the crossroads where it happens.

*** 

Clark dreams of Bruce, six feet of strong, sinewy muscle wrapped in tan skin. He dreams of Bruce in a North African country, somewhere with nothing but sand and sun, as a fruit vendor. (It must be Libya, Clark thinks, from their last recon mission. Clark remembers his mouth going dry when he walked out of the airport and saw Bruce standing in the sun.) He wears wide-brimmed straw hats (ha) and splashes his face with cold water from the nearby creek when the heat becomes too unbearable and greets customers with toothy grins and cheesy lines.

Normally Clark’s dreams are vague, obscure washes of colour and emotion, but here, here every detail is vivid: the citrusy smell of oranges lingering on Bruce’s fingers, the tan lines at his collarbones. And especially the warm kiss he gives Clark on the front porch when he comes home, damn his subconscious to hell and back.

***

“He’s  very pretty, isn’t he?” 

And Clark tries so hard not to look at Bruce, his cheeks burning with humiliation, but Bruce is like a magnet and something in Clark is too desperate to see his reaction.

Bruce’s jaw twitches like a ticking time-bomb.

And his eyes are fixed on nothing, on anything, but Clark.

Clark expects the thug to toy with him some more but he starts circling Bruce instead. He pulls a switchblade out of a concealed pocket, grinning with a mouth full of too-white teeth, and stands behind him. Bruce sets his jaw as he stares past Clark, bracing for impact. 

Clark prays to a God he doesn’t believe in.

The man pinches at a tender spot of skin behind Bruce’s ear. He smooths a finger over it with some sort of deranged sense of pleasure before driving the switchblade in, inch by inch. Clark can’t stand to hear the gurgle of the restrained scream building in Bruce’s throat.

Clark screws his eyes shut. “What do you want. Just tell me what you want.”

Bruce’s heartbeat slows down with relief, and Clark opens his eyes to see the man has stepped away. A thin line of red drips down into the hollow of Bruce’s neck, mingling with smudged dirt and salty sweat. 

He clicks his fingers and the steel door thunders open. Two men grab Bruce and drag him out. Clark loses it, thrashing against his restraints even though they burn. “Where the hell are you taking him-“

The lackey standing behind him presses the kryptonite spear harder into the back of his neck and Clark is cut off, his whole body flinching as white-hot pain sears through him.

When he regains his composure, the man and Bruce are gone. 

For an hour, Clark's mind worries itself, an anguished feedback loop of breathlessness and anxiety because he doesn't know what they're doing to Bruce. Then, the screams start. Clark tells himself those aren’t Bruce’s screams, that they're are an elaborate ploy to make Clark slowly lose his sanity, chipping away at it like the ocean erodes a cliff-face until there's nothing left but remnants of dust. Clark has never heard Bruce let anything remotely close to a scream come out of his mouth. He holds onto this one piece of hope and tells himself repeatedly that it's all a trick, smoke and mirrors.

The door opens. Mr. White-Teeth is back. “What do you want?” Clark asks, begs.

”I want to blow you to high hell and back with kryptonite and then parade your lifeless sack of a body around Metropolis on a stick.” 

As if on cue, another painful shout floats down the corridor. It sets Clark's teeth on edge. It’s the most vulnerable he's ever heard Bruce. Bruce who doesn't show a flicker of nervousness when he flirts with dangerously powerful women, who knows he can have anyone he wants, and does it too. Bruce, who never has a single hair out of place, who tailors suits to fit him like a second skin and walks around in them like he owns the place, no matter where he is. Bruce, who would let the scorpion crawling on his back strike him before shrugging it off. He'll probably kill Clark himself after this (something cruel inside of Clark laughs) for bearing witness to it.

”Anything,” Clark acquiesces. “Just -" _Let him go. _He can't say it out loud, it stays lodged in his throat.

Mr. White-Teeth smiles wickedly.

*** 

Diana manages to find them in time, Bruce and Clark’s saving grace. (_That’s a weird thought_, Clark’s mind tells him without saying why, until he realises it’s because of _Bruce and Clark_. Together.) 

She extracts Bruce first, of course. He waits on the sidewalk, standing even though he can barely hold himself up, because it’s him. His left knee is bent at a painful angle, but he stands up as straight as an arrow as if he wasn't just tortured for half an hour by a merciless thug. His right eye is closed shut, blue and black ringing it. There’s blood all over his face, some old and some new. He was wrong when he thought Bruce's slicked-hair-devastating-tuxedo ploy helped him maintain his façade. Because he's standing here, right now, looking like he just went through seven circles of Hell, and he's still a terrible void. He still gives Clark nothing.

Clark stumbles to Bruce and Diana turns away respectfully, as if turning her back to someone wanting to change their clothes.

”Bruce,” Clark’s voice comes out, utterly broken.

Clark has the maddest thought that he wants to cup his face, brush his unworthy fingers over the bruises littering Bruce’s cheekbones. (It's the delirium from the kryptonite. That's all it is.) But Bruce catches the twitch of Clark's fingers and frowns.

“Don’t,” Bruce warns, voice harder than steel. 

***

They have their debriefing meeting in the Batcave, Clark and Diana, whilst Bruce is upstairs being seen by his Doctor. They drag it out, interspersing the formal with the informal, wandering around Bruce's tech at a respectful distance, wondering whether they should wait for him or not. Diana asks Clark if he thinks he's going to be joining them, as if Clark knows. As if Clark knows anything that ever goes through Bruce's mind. He'd take the question as an insult from anybody else, but it's Diana, and he knows she means no harm. 

Instead of saying as much, Clark, for some reason, decides to play along with the illusion of control Diana has gifted him. "Probably not," he guesses, because it's the most probable outcome. Bruce will leave them in the darkness of the Batcave to talk out the important stuff and stay holed up in his room without thinking for a second that maybe they'd want to see him after everything that's happened, to see that he's alright.

(But God forbid Bruce show any vulnerability, any sort of sign that he's human. God forbid-)

(-He'd done it once before, anyway, that dark night with the rain hammering on the windows as if wanting to be let in, and it had been disastrous, hadn't it? It had ruined everything, tilted the axle of their entire world.)

***

Clark is writing up something for Perry, mind wandering (always wandering) when he has the most horrifying thought.

It plays like a loop in his mind, over and over, _he's very pretty isn't he, _and Bruce's reaction. Not the tick of his jaw, but the sheer, unadulterated disgust in his eyes as he did everything in his power not to look at him.

***

The next time Clark is with Bruce, alone, it is when they're in the living room of Bruce's home talking over the blueprints for Lex Luthor's complex, and Diana has vanished to the toilets.

"Is it because I'm a guy?" Clark asks. He's trying so hard to be assertive that he almost overcompensates, his voice a bit too loud, a bit too hard.

"What?" Bruce asks, voice dangerously flat.

Clark doesn't have the strength to repeat his question again. 

Bruce laughs, harsh and bitter. "Must you victimise yourself every time? Every fucking time?"

Diana is back before Clark can respond. (That's why he stays silent. If Diana hadn't returned, he would have responded to Bruce's double-edged cruelty. Why wouldn't he?)

***

When Clark gets to work the next morning, Bruce is plastered on the front cover of _Daily Scoop, _with Tom Brady (the actor of today's generation, makes all the girls swoon.)

Except he's been busy making Bruce swoon, it appears.

(Perhaps_ swoon_ isn't the right word, maybe _hard _would be more appropriate given the context.)

There are boxes with various dimly-lit photographs peppered around the frame of the magazine, like a trail. _X marks the spot_. And _X _is this: the biggest framed shot, showing Bruce and Tom locked in a searing kiss, Bruce's hand curled possessively around Tom's neck.

It knocks the breath out of Clark. 

His eyes drift around the bullpen, to catch Lois' gaze over her cubicle. She shoots him a concerned look. He smiles at her thinly.

(_Is it because I'm a guy?)_

At least Bruce has decided to grace him with a reply, Clark tells himself, as he tries not to hyperventilate in the middle of the office.

***

"You're coming to Bruce's party... right?"

Clark blinks at Diana. "No."

"What - why?"

_Why do you think, Diana? Why the hell do you think? Why. the. hell. do. you. fucking. think. _

Clark exhales deeply through his nose, swallowing past the lump forming in his throat. "Because."

"Because?"

"I'm busy."

"You're not," she snaps.

Clark flicks an eyebrow. "What do you know?" he snaps back, voice teetering towards fury.

Diana smiles to herself as if Clark has proven some point of hers. "You should be like this with him, you know. Stand your ground."

Clark can't even begin to think of a reply to that. She puts her hand on his shoulder gently, a gesture of goodwill, before leaving. 

***

Clark wears his best suit. It's nothing special, nowhere near good enough for Bruce's party or the sort of people who will be attending, but beggars can't be choosers, can they?

(_Beggars can't be choosers._ Clark can imagine the words coming out of Bruce's mouth if he ever asked him why they kissed. Why he kissed Clark. _Why did you kiss me,_ Clark would plead. And Bruce would shrug his shoulders nonchalantly as if Clark were asking about the weather. "Beggars can't be choosers, can they, Clark?")

Diana looks stunning in a backless gold gown. She glides between people, doling out perfunctory greetings, the eyes of the last person she's spoken to still on her as she moves onto the next.

"Clark." She smiles warmly at him.

"Where's Bruce?" Clark asks casually. Too casually.

"I think-" she stops herself, as if wondering whether she should divulge a certain piece of information. "I think he was looking for you, actually."

_I doubt that_, Clark wants to scoff. Instead, he asks, "Where?"

***

Bruce is in one of his libraries, everything plush and ornate. Looking at him you wouldn't think he'd been tortured only last week. Clark hates that he thinks it, but he misses that one fragmented moment outside in the harshness of the daylight, Bruce littered with bruises and cuts, where he looked so utterly human. Now, he looks squeaky clean, as if there's a factory somewhere that churns out _Bruce Wayne_s on the regular. (And that's a funny thought - maybe this new Bruce doesn't remember that night because it didn't happen to him.)

(It takes seven years for the body to regenerate a completely new set of cells. Seven years, Clark will have to wait.)

"Clark," he says unceremoniously. He looks through Clark, whilst he speaks. As if he's speaking to himself. "I just wanted to clear something up."

From the tone of Bruce's voice, it sounds like it's not anything Clark would want clearing up.

_What is it. What could you want to clear up with me. _

"Last week. At the warehouse."

"Yes?"

"What did he want?" 

"Maybe if you came to the debriefing, you would know," he blurts out.

Bruce narrows his eyes minutely. "I was a bit preoccupied with the Doctor. You do remember that, don't you? Or did it please you to see me in pain?"

_That's not fair. That's not fucking fair._

Finally, Clark replies to Bruce's question. "If I recall correctly, he wanted to 'blow me to high and hell and back with kryptonite.'"

"And what did you say?" he asks, the inflection of his voice going into some sort of dangerous territory that Clark can't follow.

"I-" _Anything. __I said anything he wanted, he could do. _"I said- ok. They were hurting you. I said- whatever."

Bruce takes his eyes off Clark to line up something on his desk. "Don't do that again. Ever."

Clark realises that he is monumentally tired. "Maybe next time don't get us into that situation and I won't have to."

Bruce stills, hands freezing on whatever object he's shifting on his desk. "What?"

"You know what."

The truth is, most of the blame for them ending up at Mr. White-Teeth's mercy can only land on Bruce. Because he's meant to track all contraband entering Metropolis and Gotham, including kryptonite. If he'd done so properly, then Clark could've anticipated having someone shoving kryptonite into his back, completely incapacitating him.

It's a low blow. Bruce deserves every bit of it.

"I carry out every bit of my role properly, Clark, how dare you insinuate-"

The door bursts open. "Bruce, darling?"

It's fucking Tom Brady. Clark can't even begin to understand because Bruce is never with the same person twice. 

"I'm here," Bruce answers, sickly sweet. It makes Clark laugh, he can't help it. Because it isn't real. It's nowhere near real. It's not even a smokescreen. It's absolutely fucking nothing. Clark can hardly be jealous of it.

Bruce stares Clark down until the laugh dies in his throat. "Are you going to get out, or do I have to ask?"

***

When Bruce and Tom return to the party, they are thoroughly dishevelled. 

Clark can't be jealous of that, either. 

He can't bring himself to be jealous of anyone Bruce is with, ever, because they'll never have what Clark and him had had for that one night.

(That one night, when the storm outside was nothing compared to the one within, threatening to lay waste to the walls of Wayne Manor. That one night, when the universe had seemed to shift into a patch of somewhere where anything was possible.)

Clark shakes the thought. Bruce climbs up the steps to the podium. Tom kisses him. Clark can't quite remember what the party is for.

***

The party is a hit, as always. Clark hangs in a corner, nursing a drink and picking hors d'oeuvres off the trays of busboys who venture too close to him, and wallows in his trite misery.

***

"Here."

Bruce slides a sheaf of papers towards Clark. He flicks through them: the contraband report. Bruce won't stop staring at Clark so he makes it a point to reach the last page. 

"Two kilograms," Clark reads the figure of kryptonite that's been smuggled recently.

Bruce doesn't say anything. 

"How much would you say was in that spear from last month?"

Bruce doesn't answer immediately, not because he is being hesitant, but because he can't follow Clark's train of thought, and if there's one thing he absolutely abhors, it's not being in control.

He shrugs. "Maybe a couple of hundred grams-"

"How much would it take to kill me?" The words are out before Clark can stop them.

It doesn't throw him off like Clark had thought it would. "Why?" he asks, too sharp, too quick.

_Maybe I want to fucking kill myself, Bruce. What the hell is it to you?_

Clark slides the papers back, dismissive. 

***

It didn’t use to be like this. Bruce used to be - well, still Bruce Wayne, but sometimes Just Bruce would peek out, like light rays escaping through tufts of cloud at the first sign of dawn. He would banter with Clark and flirt jokingly with Diana and they were a dysfunctional trio of home-made superheroes.

The beginning was weird, Clark remembers. They would go out and save lives, riding on the adrenaline rush, and then come back to their ‘base’ (the Batcave, the one thing that hasn’t changed) and tiptoe around each other like they were bombs. Like they were scared of each other. 

Slowly, they got used to each other. And they opened up, insomuch that they were comfortable with each other. The sort of comfort where you play cards with your comrades but don’t trust that they’re not counting cards (Diana, at least, had to be, she won nearly every-time. Her excuse was that Clark was an alien and Bruce was "absolutely terrible at cards". She doesn't say that anymore.)

Now, Bruce is the one who doesn’t trust. It’s tiring, but Clark and Diana hold each other up. 

Now, Bruce is not Bruce Wayne _or_ Just Bruce. He’s just this: a complete and utter void. For Diana, at least. For Clark, he’s a black hole; he sucks the life out of him. He takes and takes and takes. 

(_I'm not asking for anything in return. I would never. Please, God, just stop ripping me apart._)

***

Diana is in Egypt for a mission (something to do with a 50-carat diamond and a femme-fatale assassin who floats between continents like a ghost). Which means Bruce and Clark are left to hold down the base. 

Which is fine. Clark can deal with it, he's been dealing with it for the past five months. (Six years and seven months left, a small voice inside Bruce whispers.) It's not like hanging out is in the agenda (anymore), all they need to do is fight crime, log it in Bruce's pretentious system in the Batcave, and then get back home. That's all there is to it. And Bruce is scarily professional, isn't he, which is ironic because _Bruce Wayn_e is anything but. The Bruce Wayne the world knows buys whole hotels so he can accommodate the swimming pool rules to his own fashionable lateness, and then leaves the acquisition board meetings half-way to meet pretty women.

Clark sometimes wishes he only knew Bruce Wayne. He'd interview him as Clark Kent, about his philanthropy or Wayne Tower or something and he'd answer vaguely, and at the end, he'd wink at Clark superficially because Bruce Wayne's favourite pastime is flirting and that would be it. The End.

***

"Mr Kent," Alfred greets warmly as he opens up the door for Clark. His voice is friendly but it comes out oddly, and he’s looking over his shoulder suspiciously like he’s a teenager trying to sneak out at night.

“Alfred... is, um, is Bruce here?”

”He is...” Alfred trails, moving to the side to allow Clark to step inside. “He called you?”

Clark furrows his brow. “He texted me, yes.”

Alfred takes Clark’s coat off him and hangs it on a stand politely. “Ah, yes. There was something he wanted to discuss with you, he was muttering about it yesterday. He must've set up an automatic text yesterday...”

Clark’s heart kind of drops at Alfred’s tone, like a stone sinking to the bottom of a murky river immediately, but he extends his super-hearing towards the direction of Bruce’s bedroom (he doesn’t use his x-ray vision, he doesn’t have it in himself to be that invasive) and he can hear the mellow beat of Bruce’s heart. 

He holds onto it even when Alfred resumes speaking, the soft thrum of it comforting. “It just hasn’t been the greatest of days for Master Wayne, I must say.”

He's being quiet, as if Bruce might appear out of nowhere and catch Alfred in the incriminating act of letting others know he’s not okay. And the way he speaks lowly, eyes searching Clark’s for something, is like he knows something. He probably does: Alfred has the eeriest instinct, especially when it comes to Bruce. (_Do you know I'd fly to the moon for him? Do you know I'd cut my own heart out for him?_)

Clark should tell Alfred that he isn’t really the best person to ask for help. (Clark is the last person on Earth Bruce would ask for help.) Instead he smiles sadly at Alfred and nods. Takes a steady breath as if he’s going into war. “I’ll check up on him.”

”Thank you,” Alfred says, utterly grateful.

***

For five minutes, Clark only stands outside Bruce’s door, not able to muster the courage to knock. When he finally does, he jerks his hand away from the door, as if trying to take it back.

But it’s too late, and Bruce is opening the door, and he looks like Hell iced over. And he narrows his eyes at Clark not with a sense of surprise but just suspicion, as if Clark’s here to take something from him. (_It would take me days and days to take from you to even the score, _Clark thinks.)

“Bruce,” he simply says, treading on thin ice. 

Bruce’s nose twitches. He looks away. Looks back. “You. You’re here because...”

Clark thinks it’s meant to sound arrogant but Bruce only sounds kind of lost. “The text?” Clark prompts, like a teacher guiding a student.

”Yeah. Yeah, right, of course."

The only way Clark can ask his next question is at face value. (It's the only way he could ask it last time, too). "Are you okay?"

A small crease forms between Bruce's brows, but he doesn't blow up like Clark would've thought. He can't, can he? (Not without remembering that night).

"Fine," he snaps, irritated. "Come-" he says reflexively, body twitching to allow Clark to pass, before he catches up with himself and stands solid in the doorway, blocking Clark. 

At this point it's hitting Clark like déjà vu, and he has to take a minute step back to distance himself from the scenario folding out in front of him. Maybe they've come into an alternate timeline where they're being gifted the permission to make everything right, something utterly stupid inside Clark suggests.

(_Can't be fixed_, Bruce would say if he could hear Clark's conversation with himself, and then go along with his day as if he hadn't in that one sentence damned their whole relationship.)

"The Batcave," Bruce blurts our, as if he's just remembered. "I need to show you something."

***

The truth is, love kills you. It destroys you.

Unless you kill it first. 

That’s why Bruce is able to bask in the presence of a new person on his arm every week, and Clark can only watch with shaking hands.

***

Bruce’s fingers fly over his computer as he pulls up whatever he wants to show Clark. He doesn’t speak, but Clark doesn’t want to pull him out of his train of thought so he stays silent. 

He looks up, tracing the jagged edges of the cave with his eyes. (Wonders what would happen if right at that moment the ceiling caved in.)

"So," Bruce starts, "I managed to hack into Lex Luthor’s mainframe."

Clark snaps out of his reverie, training his eyes back on the computer screen.

"Okay," Clark prompts.

"It shut me out after five minutes, he has a very sophisticated firewall, but I managed to download this." He clicks on a file. It’s a blueprint for something, but only the top half of the image loads up. "Well, half-downloaded it," he says with a dry smile. “It’s a suit of some kind."

Clark takes in the sketch of a face-plate, the metal-framed shoulders. "Is it something military?"

"That’s the thing, this was in his personal files. It isn’t for LexCorp."

Bruce grabs something from a file-box. It’s a cream-coloured envelope. He opens it and slides out what looks to be an invitation. Hands it to Clark with careful fingers (like Clark is diseased.)

"_Lex Luthor invites you cordially to LexCorp Tower for an unveiling presentation on it’s new Artificial Intelligence subsidiary_," Clark reads out. That’s all it says. He turns the thick card over but there’s nothing on the back. "When is it?"

"Tomorrow."

"I don’t have an invitation to this."

Bruce shoots his (empty, utterly empty) Bruce-Wayne-Grin. "I’ll sort it out."

_If only you could sort out the things that really mattered. _

"Alright-"

Clark’s cut off by Bruce’s stomach rumbling. The strange sound echoes around the cave. 

He puts two and two together. "Bruce. Have you eaten today?"

Bruce grimaces. "None of your business."

"So no," Clark infers.

"Shut up," Bruce says with bite.

"Alfred said-"

"Oh, fuck off. Don’t bring Alfred into it."

Clark places the invitation back in its envelope neatly, tucks it in the desk drawer, and walks away.

***

The thing is, Bruce had warned Clark. 

(But Clark had made a promise in return, that night, too. He can’t forget that either.)

***

The LexCorp event is at 1900 hours. It's on the 25th floor of LexCorp tower, which is four floors below the 29th floor, where LexCorp's laboratories start. Lex's personal files can be hacked into from any LexCorp computer terminal by one who knows what they're doing. Clark knows all this because Bruce lets him know in a cold text, two hours before the starting time.

_Buy a new goddamn suit, _Bruce adds in a second text. It's a bit out of the blue; Bruce doesn't usually put emotions into his texts anymore, even if it is only disgust at Clark's clothing.

Clark most definitely does _not _buy a new suit. He wears one that is too tight at the shoulders and a weird shade of navy, and grabs a cab to LexCorp Tower.

***

Clark hands his invitation to the man at the entrance, an exact replica of the one Bruce had shown him in the Batcave (it had appeared in the post without any sign as to who had sent, not that Clark needed one). The man looks Clark up and down, not at all subtle. "Your name, sir?"

"Clark Kent."

He scrolls through something on his tablet, eyes widening fractionally. "Oh, I see, you're with Bruce Wayne. So sorry for holding you up, Sir, right this way."

_With Bruce Wayne. _It puts the sourest taste in his mouth. "Thanks," he mumbles as he walks through to the elevator. There's a severe-looking bellhop who nods subserviently to Clark and presses a button. _25 _lights up on the lift panel. 

"Thanks," Clark says for the second time.

He tugs at the hem of his suit jacket self-consciously as the lift doors ding open. He doesn't even know if Bruce will be here, yet. He never communicates properly when he's in a mood (which is fucking always always always). It's his manner of control. It's fucking infuriating. But Bruce needs it, doesn't he, so Clark lets him have it. He lets him if it means he doesn't teeter over the edge.

Bruce is the first person Clark sees, conveniently. He's standing at the bar, in direct eye-line of the elevator, sipping on a highball of whiskey. Clark weaves through people deferentially, settling by Bruce's side.

Bruce is starting to look gaunt. It's not a word you would associate with Bruce Wayne but if you pay attention (and Clark always pays attention, always always always) you can see the hollows of his cheekbones are slightly more pronounced. 

"I thought I told you to wear something appropriate," Bruce mutters against the rim of his glass.

Clark ignores him, flagging down a bartender. He comes at once. "A martini, please, and a bowl of..." Clark picks the first bar snack he can think of. "Olives. Green." Clark knows Bruce likes green olives.

Bruce doesn't say anything, only flicks a deft eyebrow, until they arrive and Clark nudges the small bowl in Bruce's direction. 

"What?"

"Have an olive," Clark says, staring at the martini in his hand.

"I don't want a fucking-" Someone brushes past them and he falls silent. "Clark, you're absurd," he says, not kindly, but plucks an olive nonetheless. Clark doesn't watch him push it past his lips. 

Clark has one too, in a show of solidarity. 

"Luthor is going to come out at 7:30 for his opening speech," Bruce murmurs under his breath. "It's the-"

"29th floor yes, I know."

Bruce sips on his drink. His hand finds Clark's thigh. Clark freezes. 

"Here," he says, sliding his hand next to Clark's on his thigh. He nudges Clark's hand and Clark lifts it ever so slightly to receive whatever Bruce is trying to slide him. It's a keycard. "In case I need help."

(_How can you not feel the heat between us?_)

Clark pockets it, finishes his martini, and leaves the bar without another word.

The thing is, it's suspicious when a journalist leaves just in time to miss the billionaire host's speech. But Bruce Wayne leaving just in time to miss the billionaire host's speech is just as bad. (They're just as bad as each other.) Diana usually does the sneaking around, she's much better at it. She's learnt how to become a shadow over the years, even with everyone's eyes on her.

Clark has x-ray vision, so he wins out of the two, usually. What he doesn’t have, though, is the tech knowledge to access Luthor’s files. So this time Bruce Wayne gets to be the spy and Clark gets to be back-up.

***

At 19:35, Bruce manages to slip away from the crowd congregating around the main stage.

The keycard is burning a hole in Clark’s dress trousers. He ignores it and listens to Luthor talk about a new era of technology.

At 19:41, Clark’s phone buzzes. 

"_Done. Batcave_," Bruce’s text reads. 

Clark waits for Luthor to wrap up his speech. He chucks the keycard Bruce gave him in the trash on his way out.

***

The whole blueprint for whatever Luthor wants to make looks much more sinister in full, enlarged on Bruce’s monitor.

"Can he make it?" Clark asks, doubtful.

"Don’t be naïve, of course he can."

"Not for the military, then."

"No. It’s too advanced and costly for the army."

"He must just want it for himself, then. To do his own dirty work."

Bruce hums in half-assent. 

"It doesn’t look like he plans to make it anytime soon. Diana will be back in three days. We can discuss what to do then." Bruce outstretches his hand in demand. "The keycard."

There’s no way he still needs it. At this point, he just sets Clark up to fail. "Threw it away," Clark replies defiantly. "If you can do it once, you can do it again, I’m sure."

(_I never want to keep something you give me ever again._)

***

"_Look at our daily gossip column__!!!!!_" Lois texts Clark. He doesn't make much of it but clicks onto their online blog as he sips on his morning coffee.

_BLOND BRAD SWAPPED OUT FOR MYSTERY BRUNETTE?_

Fuck.

Relief floods Clark's system when the grainy picture loads up. Only the back of his head is in it, but Bruce's profile is clear to see, backlit by the jazzy lights of the bar. And his hand is clear as day, inching up Clark's thigh obscenely. Clark had thought being in the moment was bad, but seeing it in physical form afterwards makes him sick. He clicks off the site and replies to Lois's text with a couple of evasive question marks.

"_I know what the back of your head looks like!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_" comes the immediate reply.

Lois is definitely going to come over and grill him during her break. He guesses he should start thinking of an excuse, but his phone ringing disrupts his train of thought.

Bruce's name blinks on his screen ominously. Clark groans under his breath.

"Get rid of it," Bruce hisses down the line at Clark, without preamble.

The metal of his phone creaks in his grip. "It’s not that easy," Clark seethes. 

"It’s been posted by The fucking_ Daily Planet_. Just do something."

Clark laughs bitterly down the phone. "That’s not how life works, Bruce. At least not for us mere mortals."

Bruce only breathes down the line furiously. 

"It'll blow over," Clark lies. It probably won't. Someone from the event will probably end up connecting the dots. But that's not something Bruce needs to hear.

The line clicks off disrespectfully. Clark wants to smash his phone against the wall, but he takes a deep breath, reins in his anger, puts his mobile away, and gets back to work.

***

(That night—

Clark goes to Wayne Manor. It's to return a file he borrowed off Bruce a couple of days ago, a dossier on a drug lord trying to expand his territory into Metropolis. He could wait till their next meeting but who knows when the three of them will reconvene and he doesn't want the file to be hanging around collecting dust in his apartment when Bruce could be making good use of it.

So he goes, intending to give it to Bruce in person if he's lurking around the lower level of the house. Slipping it into his postbox if he isn't. 

He rings the doorbell. He probably should've let Bruce know from before but he only decided to drop by on his way home. His subconscious most definitely did _not _plan this as an ambush. 

The seconds stretch into minutes. The estate is eerily quiet and the sun setting bathes the manor in an apocalyptic orange glow. Clark pushes the file into the ostentatious, over-the-top mailbox built by the door, but doesn't turn to leave. 

He widens his hearing range just in time to catch the clatter of a glass bottle coming from the direction of Bruce's bedroom.

_Leave it, Clark. Leave._

Clark presses down the handle to the door. It yields. He enters on light feet into the dark foyer. "Alfred?" he calls out quietly. 

No answer. Clark climbs up the circling stairs to the first floor. Bruce's room is at the end, a dim light peeking through the bottom of the door. Clark knocks on the door firmly. "Bruce?"

There's another clatter inside. Clark pushes the door open.

"Bruce-"

He's on the floor, one arm draped on his bed. An empty bottle of whiskey rolls to Clark's feet. It's like a black-and-white scene out of a tragedy opera, and Clark is sure that when his presence catches up to Bruce the illusion will shatter. But Bruce remains draped over the bed, blinks up at Clark with the saddest expression. Clark flicks the switch by the door on; the light catches on the tears on Bruce's lashes.

"Bruce," Clark says, the softest he's ever spoken. He crouches on the floor by Bruce, hand on his shoulder to get him up. "Are you okay?"

"Clark," Bruce's voice comes out, utterly broken.

His breath is heavy with the smell of alcohol. Clark tries to get Bruce up onto the bed, but he drags Clark down onto the marble floor. 

"Bruce, Bruce. What's wrong? Please tell me what's wrong."

"My father..." Bruce slurs incomprehensively. Nods towards the bottle, fingers twitching in its direction. "Father's favourite whiskey."

Clark cups the back of Bruce's neck (doesn't know how he has the guts to, but he does it.) "Hey. Hey, look at me."

"I killed them," Bruce says, voice breaking. (Broken.) "I killed them."

"You didn't-" Clark is choking up, now that he knows what Bruce means. "It's not your fault. Bruce, it's not your fault."

Bruce tries to twist away from Clark but his grip is firm. "I did, I did. I can't do this. I can't do it."

Clark doesn't try and decipher what he means. Only holds on tighter to Bruce. And Bruce clutches at the collar of Clark's shirt, desperate fingers pressing creases that Clark won't be able to straighten out later, no matter what.

Bruce tries to breathe through his sobs. "I've got you," Clark soothes Bruce, hand rubbing circles at the nape of his neck. It's the most Clark has ever dared to touch. It feels like the last. 

Bruce takes a shaky breath. "I don't want this," he says ambiguously, but Clark can parse out the meaning. No matter the words that come out of Bruce's mouth, his hopelessness is unmistakeable. Clark can't bear to listen. 

Clark suddenly sees all of Bruce's mannerisms in a different light. Foregoing meals for coffee, not sleeping for more than four hours, waking up at 5am to go for runs, staring ahead with empty eyes and flat smiles. It isn't efficiency, is it? It looks so much like efficiency when it's done by Bruce, but it isn't. 

"You have to..." Clark doesn't know what to say. "Take care of yourself," he ends pathetically. 

Clark spots a carafe of water on Bruce's sidetable and tries to reach for it, telegraphing his movements for Bruce, but Bruce doesn't let him, pulling him back. "Who's going to take care of me?" he slurs. 

_You. You're meant to take care of yourself, Bruce. _

"I'll take care of you," Clark says instead.

"It's rotten work," Bruce laments. Exhales the words on a wet sob.

Clark cups Bruce's face with the tenderest touch. Brushes the calloused pad of his thumb against Bruce's cheek. "Not to me," he promises. "Not if it's you."

Bruce exhales deeply, breath shuddering. "I..." he starts, but doesn't finish. He says the rest with his mouth instead, surging up to kiss Clark on the mouth. There's no heat behind it, it's softer than anything Clark has ever felt, and he can't even startle in surprise because it feels like the universe has righted for a second.

Bruce flattens himself against Clark and Clark holds him, for God knows how long. Not long enough.)

***

The next day, Bruce had been as sharp and polished as always. Empty eyes and flat smiles. Clark pulled him to the side as soon as he could, when Diana was too busy mapping something out on Bruce's computer to be paying attention.

"Are you okay?"

Bruce squinted at Clark. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Any words died in Clark's throat. "What... what do you mean? After last night." 

Bruce looked at him blankly and Clark realised with horror what was about to happen. It didn't make it hurt any less. (It kind of broke Clark's heart.)

"What happened last night?"


End file.
